Clinical Issues: Improving Students' Delegation Skills
Rose M. Powell PhD, RN

$3.95 		Nurse Educator
February 2011 
Volume 36  Number 1
Pages 9 - 10
 
  PDF Version Available!

ABSTRACT
Delegation among healthcare providers is important to safe and effective care delivery. With team nursing, the ability of registered nurses (RNs) to delegate was critical. When the care delivery model changed to primary care and 1 nurse on each shift had total care responsibility for his/her patients, the RN had little need to delegate to others. This led to a decrease in curricular emphasis on delegation.Healthcare reforms and the nursing shortage have resulted in shifts to staffing mix with hospitals using unlicensed assistive personnel (UAP). Unlicensed assistive personnel are now an integral part of the healthcare team, providing direct and indirect patient care under the supervision of the nurse. Nurses now need to have a clear understanding and accountability of their role in delegating to UAP, as well as monitoring that care according to the national standards and state practice acts.1,2 Once again, an increase in curricular emphasis on delegation skills is needed to assure that nursing students are competent delegators upon graduation.To address this issue, faculty at our rural baccalaureate science of nursing school of nursing revised the curriculum to address delegation. Our learning framework was based on the importance of having didactic instruction augmented with active learning techniques, such as such as talking, listening, reading, and reflecting, that encourage student participation and retention of knowledge and skills.3-5To address the curriculum gap in knowledge and competency related to delegation, content was added to a new leadership and management course. With the assistance of my team member, we developed a 3-pronged approach to content: didactic, case studies, and clinical placement.The course's didactic content focuses on instructing students on the theory of delegation and other management principles. Theory and application exercises were taken from a multitude of references. In our state, Texas, the Texas Board of Nursing RN Delegation Rule

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